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Seventh Listing May Be the Charm For Briargrove Park Hopeful

This property in Briargrove Park has had more MLS lives than Henry VIII had wives. The current listing is the fourth round for the same agent and seventh for the address since November 2010. In the interim, the price has bounced around, landing at an even $500,000 10 days ago after runs at $529,000, $499,000, $495,000, $499,000 (again), $575,000 in April, and reductions to $549,000 and $525,000.

Stylized photos of the 1998 brick-and-stucco home in Briar Court show its little-of-this, little-of-that exterior, decked out with builder-deco keystones, quoins, gas lamps, and an entry arch. A Medici-worthy Italianate balustrade suggests a balcony, but it’s not to be: A window sits close behind it helping light the atrium entry hall within. Beyond the double-wide leaded-glass front door, a stripped-down entry unfolds, complete with curving, pincher-like double staircases and a marble floor:

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Beyond the staircases: this 16-ft.-by-24-ft. family room, which has a fireplace and access to the back yard:

An arch leading to the kitchen throws another curve into the mix downstairs:

The living room floor is marble tile:

In the kitchen, there are wood-toned cabinets and wooden floors:

Like many of the home’s less formal rooms, the breakfast room off the kitchen and family room has plantation shutters at the windows:

Everything has its place in the alcoves of the master bedroom suite, which is downstairs:

Upstairs, an open area overlooking the entry hall is labeled a game room:

I’m curious to any of you realtors out there: what message do you infer when a listing’s price goes *up* after the house doesn’t sell? I interpret that as “Hi, we’re KRAZZZZY and irrational sellers” but do the professionals see it that way?

I grew up in the older part of this neighborhood. Obviously most of the early houses (very late 50s on) were aping some sort of style, though usually not several at once- whether Colonial or Federal or whatever is denoted by wrought-ironwork across the porch. I visit once a year and I’ve kind of forgotten. A few attractive nods to “Spanish” architecture. Yet they sort of worked, and I think the difference comes down to scale. The plans for those older borrowings incorporated some notion of proportion. I unconsciously loathed all the shutters that, should they have been operable, would have covered only a fraction of the windows; but overall I think I judged too harshly. The older part of the neighborhood “works” – even those of you who make such a display of your indifference to aesthetics and your glee at kitsch (while haunting a website devoted to architecture and urban planning) would probably recognize this. That’s okay – you don’t have to admit it.